by Mia Gabriel
I twisted away from her, placing my hand protectively over the long strand around my throat that Savage had given me.
“No, Hamlin, they are not,” I said. “They are a good deal finer than the ones that Mr. Hart gave me, and given as a mark of true regard, which was never the case with my husband. And that is all you need know of them.”
Hamlin’s face pinched with stern disapproval.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “But allow me to say, ma’am, that your poor dear husband must be spinning in his grave at the very thought of you wearing them pearls instead of the ones what he gave you, and—”
“That will be all, Hamlin,” I said curtly. “You may return to your bed.”
“But, ma’am, your hair—”
“I can manage myself,” I said, turning away to prove the conversation truly was done. I knew Hamlin, just as she knew me, and if I’d given her any encouragement she would have begun scolding me in earnest, servant or not. There couldn’t be a more potent reminder of my old life in New York than Hamlin’s disapproval, nor could the juxtaposition between my past and the new life I’d begun as Savage’s lover have been more jarring. “Now leave me, please.”
“Very well, ma’am,” she said, adding an extra sniff for emphasis. “Good night, ma’am.”
I heard the door click shut behind her and let out a long sigh of weary relief. I kicked off my shoes and drew the last pins from my hair without bothering to brush or braid it. I washed and turned down the lights; it was true these were little tasks that I seldom did for myself, but tonight I found peace in them, Finally I climbed into the large bed, made up with my own lace-edged sheets, and settled back against the small mountain of pillows. Given the hour and all I had done, I should have fallen asleep at once.
I couldn’t.
As exhausted as I was, I still felt too unsettled, too on edge, to give myself over to sleep. With the heavy drapes over the windows the hotel room felt as airless and muffled as a tomb, and I longed for the always-open windows of the tower room I’d shared with Savage at Wrenton.
But what I longed for far more was Savage himself.
Before I’d become his Innocent and he my Master I’d always slept by myself. One week with him had changed me forever, and now my bed seemed intolerably lonely without him in it.
I missed the heat of his male body lying close against mine, the scent of his skin, the rhythm of his breathing, the weight of his arm curled protectively around my waist and his cock pressed against the small of my back.
I missed the unpredictability of his presence, when at any moment I might be drawn from my sleep and into his world of pleasure, his fingers lightly teasing my cunt awake before the rest of me realized it.
I missed waking to see him watching me, the little flicker of connection in his pale-blue eyes when our gazes met again. I missed the security of having him there and knowing that he’d never let any harm come to me while I was with him.
Most of all, I missed the focus he’d given my life. I hadn’t realized how lost I’d become, moving like a ghost without a soul through my days and nights, until he had appeared to lead me. I’d called him Master as part of the Game, but that was exactly what he had become to me, and that was exactly what I’d wanted and needed.
Without Savage with me I was lost again, and in that oversized bed I felt like a rudderless boat drifting farther and farther from the safe shore that he’d become for me. I twisted his pearls around my fingers as my thoughts raced ahead.
That walk through the lobby—he’d called it a challenge to test my confidence, but what if instead it had been his way of casting me off? What if he’d tired of me already? Lady Carleigh had told me that his intrigues were famously brief. What if he no longer needed me while I needed him more than ever?
In desperation I pushed aside my nightgown and spread my thighs and bent my knees. I had never touched myself before I’d met Savage, but he had encouraged me to learn how to please myself as he’d watched.
I pretended he was watching me again now. I slid my hand over my slit, parting my slick, puffy lips and gliding my fingers back and forth. Savage had told me I had a beautiful cunt, and I wanted to believe him. Certainly the swirling currents of excitement were beautiful. Savage had kept me in a near-constant state of arousal, and I was still swollen and my flesh sticky wet, so that when I stroked harder I couldn’t keep back the shuddering gasp of pleasure.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it was Savage touching me. With my other hand I crushed my breast in my hand and squeezed the tip. I remembered how he’d tugged on my ruddy-red nipple through the black lace of my gown, how his teeth had grazed the tip just short of pain.
I slid lower, one finger into my passage, then two and three, as I kept the pad of my thumb circling lightly around my pearl. The little nub of sensation sprang to life, sending fiery tremors through my body. My fingers could never replace Savage’s cock—what could?—but they helped me remember, and I rocked my hips upward, straining towards my release.
Briefly I touched my fingertips to my tongue. I loved the musky, salty essences of lovemaking, and I thought I could still taste Savage as well as myself.
I pictured his thick cock grinding into me, tormenting me as he withdrew almost completely before thrusting and filling me completely. I remembered how taut his face became as he concentrated on fucking me, how every muscle of his body strained and slickened with sweat and his black hair fell forward like a raven’s wing over his forehead. He’d push my thighs more widely apart with his palms and slide his hands beneath my bottom, lifting me up to meet his cock while I clutched at his shoulders, gasping for breath and for him, for him.
I came in a fevered, jerking rush of bliss, falling back against the pillows. Blindly I rubbed at my slit as I tried to make the moment last, but still the last waves of pleasure and fantasy faded away and my heartbeat slowed back to normal.
Yet still there was no Savage, and to my sorrow I was still alone.
3.
“Good day to you, ma’am,” Hamlin said briskly as she pulled open the window curtains. “You left no word on when you wished to be awakened, but you have a visitor waiting for you downstairs.”
“A visitor?” Immediately I sat upright, certain the visitor must be Savage. “Hurry, hurry; I must dress and go down at once.”
“The footman said Her Ladyship would wait for you, ma’am,” Hamlin said, holding my robe up for me. “He said you could find her in the tearoom downstairs.”
I paused, disappointment sweeping over me. “Her Ladyship?”
“Yes, ma’am, yes, Her Ladyship the Viscountess of Carleigh,” Hamlin said importantly. If ordinary Americans were impressed by noble English titles, then American servants were doubly so, as eager to bow down before a peer or peeress as if the Revolution had never been fought. “Come now; you mustn’t keep Her Ladyship waiting overlong.”
No, Lady Carleigh wasn’t Savage, but because they were friends she might have word from him for me. I dressed as quickly as Hamlin could manage, once again in the full accoutrements of a fashionable lady.
My body chafed beneath the confiding layers of lace and linen, buckram and steel boning. As much as I would have preferred to keep to the simple Innocent’s dress that I’d worn (or, rather, not worn; it had been so insubstantial a garment that I might as well have been naked) as part of the Game at Wrenton, I knew that I couldn’t appear in the Savoy’s tearoom in anything less than a gown by Worth.
I chose a suitable confection of yellow silk gauze and lace embroidered with white lilies and draped my pearls—Savage’s pearls—around my throat. Just as Hamlin was making the last adjustment in the curve of the plumes on my broad-brimmed hat there came an impatient knock on my suite door.
“At last, my dear Mrs. Hart, at last!” exclaimed Lady Carleigh as she swallowed me in a well-perfumed embrace, with a kiss on either cheek. “I was so perishing of impatience that I couldn’t bear to wait another moment to see you. You departed i
n such haste last night.”
“I’m very happy to see you, too, my lady,” I said, and I was. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting so long.”
Since I’d come to London I’d grown quite fond of Lady Carleigh. With her red-gold hair, lush figure, and exuberant personality, she was considered one of the leaders of the “fast” set led by the king, and there were whispers that Her Ladyship herself had been one of the titled beauties who had shared the royal bed.
After what I’d witnessed at her country house, I’d come to believe that those whispers were likely true. She and Lord Carleigh appeared to have a forgiving marriage based more on amusement than on fidelity, and since I had come to London to escape the stultifying, puritanical morality of New York society I found her hedonism fresh and a welcome change.
Besides, she’d been the one to introduce me to Savage. What more could I wish from a friend?
“You are well, then?” she asked, studying my face so closely that I felt my cheeks warm. She and Lord Carleigh had invented the Game to entertain their houseguests, but when Savage and I had played our roles with more intensity that anyone else she’d feared things had gone too far between us. “No ill effects from a surfeit of, ah, country air?”
With Hamlin and my footman within hearing she was clearly being discreet about Savage. I appreciated her reticence. I’d never before had a lover, and I’d much to learn about how to manage it. At twenty-five I should have been past the age of inexperience and innocence, but the only other man I’d ever lain with had been my much-older husband in our loveless, passionless marriage of convenience.
“Not at all,” I said. “I found the country air enjoyable and, ah, invigorating.”
She turned her head slightly, considering me seriously from beneath the curving brim of her hat. “You are certain of this, my dear?”
“I am,” I said firmly. “My only regret was that I hadn’t time to take more of it.”
At last she laughed, reassured. “Then we shall see if we can arrange that for you. I do wish my friends to be happy.” She glanced curiously around my suite. “You must be happy enough here. What charming quarters you have for yourself!”
“They suffice,” I said. “Should I send for tea for us?”
“Gracious, no,” she said blithely. “I mean to sweep you downstairs where all the world can admire you and that splendid gown. One never knows who one might meet in the tearoom.”
She winked slyly, and my heart quickened. Surely she must mean Savage. Who else could it be?
“Then by all means we should go to the tearoom,” I said, eagerly taking up my purse.
“In a moment,” Lady Carleigh said. “Have you looked through your mail and cards since you’ve returned from the country? While we were away from town the Lord Chamberlain has extended invitations to next week’s evening Drawing Room.”
“Truly?” The evening Drawing Room was held by the king and queen at Buckingham Palace, and it was the only way that a woman could be presented at Court. Without that presentation there would be no invitations to any of the balls and other social engagements at the Palace, and so that first invitation to a royal Drawing Room was crucial.
Such invitations did not come easily to Americans, either. Like all my fellows from across the Atlantic, I had to rely on the American ambassador for assistance. He had found me a suitably unimpeachable sponsor—a dowager marchioness whose gambling habits had made her welcome my “gift” in return for her support. The ambassador had then sponsored my application, duly vouching for my character and reptuation, but there were also endless investigations of my past and worthiness conducted by the Lord Chamberlain’s office. No explanations for rejection was ever forthcoming; one simply wasn’t invited.
I didn’t ask for a servant to bring the tray with my mail but hurried to it myself, my heart racing with anticipation. After a week, the large silver salver was near to overflowing with invitations, notes, calling cards, and letters from New York.
One envelope stood out, its heavy cream-colored stock setting it apart. I quickly opened it, and there was the desired invitation: The Lord Chamberlain is Commanded by Their Majesties to invite Mrs. Arthur Hart …
I didn’t need to read further but held the card up in triumph so Lady Carleigh could read it for herself.
“Oh, well done!” Lady Carleigh said, clapping her gloved hands together. “Come now; we must celebrate properly.”
She linked her arm through mine, asking about my presentation dress and other nonsense until we were seated at a small table in a window alcove in the tearoom. The room was crowded with ladies and a few gentlemen, as was always the case with tearooms. To my disappointment, there was no sign of Savage, nor, really, could I imagine him in such an environment.
“I asked specifically for this table,” Her Ladyship said as we settled ourselves in our chairs, sweeping our skirts gracefully around our legs. “It’s the choicest one in the entire room. The light will show us to best advantage, and we will be seen by everyone who enters, but we shall see them first. Best of all, we can speak in complete confidence, with no one able to overhear us.”
The waiter brought us a large silver pot of tea, as well as plates of scones and dishes of clotted cream and berry jam. I still had not accustomed myself to the English notion of a cream tea (as this was), for to me scones and jam were properly eaten at breakfast, not in the middle of the afternoon. But because the countess had ordered it for me I would eat it and marvel at how we would likely speak of the most decadent things while our mouths were filled with clotted cream.
“You do not know how fortunate you are to have received that invitation to the Drawing Room, my dear,” Lady Carleigh said as she ladled sugar into her tea. “I feared you wouldn’t, you know.”
I nodded sagely. “Because I’m an American.”
“Not at all,” she said. “In the time of the old queen—may God rest her soul!—any lady who had a less than impeccable history was not welcome. Her Majesty would cancel a Drawing Room entirely rather than have a merry lady presented to her, no matter what her rank.”
“But my history is impeccable!” I exclaimed. “That is, until—”
“Until Savage entered your life.” She pursed her lips over the teacup. “Now you know that my own—what shall I call it?—my own experiences have been far from impeccable, but I had scarcely returned to London myself today when I heard of your extravagant return here to the Savoy this morning. You must have cut quite a pretty figure, traipsing through the lobby like a lost Aphrodite.”
I gasped with dismay. “How could you hear of it?”
“Servants,” she said succinctly. “Though the reference to the ancient goddess is mine, not theirs. Surely it must be the same in New York. I’m certain my footmen must have friends among the waiters and porters here, and in their circles scandal travels with alacrity—nearly as fast as in Society.”
I was horrified, and despite Lady Carleigh’s assurances of the privacy of our table, I leaned closer to her and lowered my voice in urgency.
“Savage proposed it, my lady,” I said. “He said it was another challenge, another trial, for me as his Innocent. He told me to walk through the lobby wearing the same clothes I’d worn to my last dinner at Wrenton. I was supposed to act as if nothing were out of the ordinary. He wanted me to feel no shame, either. Rather, he wanted me to glory in my role—which I did, my lady.”
“Please, call me Laura,” Lady Carleigh said, then laid her hand over mine on the table. “If I in turn may call you by your given name.”
“Oh, yes, please do,” I said, flattered she’d grant me that familiarity. “It’s Evelyn. Thank you, Laura.”
I’d nearly said “Eve,” the variant of my name that Savage preferred. No one else had ever called me that, but I loved the sound of it on his tongue and in his voice, and the meaning he’d added to it, too. Evelyn was the woman I’d been and Eve the woman I’d become with him—but of course no one else, not even Laura, could know that.
“Evelyn, then.” She smiled, but it was a smile tight with concern for me. “This is what I feared would happen to you. I’d hoped you would have been able to enjoy his company, yet also resist if his, ah, ‘challenges,’ as he calls them, became a hazard to you.”
“His challenges have never been a hazard to me,” I insisted. I couldn’t explain to her what Savage’s challenges did mean to me, because I hadn’t the words. They simply weren’t yet in my everyday vocabulary. How could they be, when I’d been raised to consider sex as a distasteful obligation for procreation and nothing more?
“They have been exciting, daring, surprising, and … and many other things besides,” I said carefully. “Most of all they have been pleasurable, but not hazardous. It’s never that with Savage.”
“But they will be, Evelyn, if Savage insists on such public challenges,” Laura said. “The Game is meant to be exactly that: an amusing sport to pass the time among friends in the country. It doesn’t belong here in London, where things can be misunderstood. Savage himself should know better. Society will turn a blind eye to all manner of indiscretions, so long as a reasonable attempt is made to mask them.”
“You preach hypocrisy, then?” I asked, testy from her accusations.
“I preach common sense,” she said severely, “and there was nothing sensible about how you returned to town last night. I’ll grant that most of it was Savage’s fault. Turning you out of his car at the door of the Savoy just before dawn was not a gentlemanly thing to do. It was rash and reckless and selfish, and I do not wish for you to suffer because of it.”
In some way I understood what she was saying. The lady was always the one who suffered in the judgment of Society. If I hadn’t been swept away by my role as Savage’s Innocent, I would never have made such a public display of myself as I had this morning. Still, I had come to London for adventure, and this was part of it. Besides, I didn’t believe that Savage himself would cause me any harm or that he’d ever wish to. There was no denying that he was a strong man. He could be firm and decisive, but he wasn’t cruel.